Great turbines on the roof of the city glow a dull orange as they pump heated air down into the great brass dome that encapsulates a million lives. A single, sprawling edifice constructed with unknown multitudes of gothic buildings from the diminutive to the colossal, sits within its metal confines, steaming, brooding and seething with activity. Life is ennui. All efforts are put towards the perpetual struggle to survive against the relentless inhabitability of the world above and the surefire shortages of vital supplies. There is little room for anything other than the work you are given, except for the hour between the work horns and the sleep horns.
There, people meet in their closest entanglements. They meet to read. To watch. To play. They meet in tiny pubs and in bedrooms overlooking the sprawl of the city. They sit on balconies facing brick walls. They straddle the vast pipes of industry and lie below titanic, abandoned machines. Then, in the latter half of the hour, they discuss. Discuss the things they have consumed, in all mediums. Discuss what they think about them, how they feel about them. Their praises and critiques. Their hopes for future volumes and their reservations about previous editions. They discuss their favourite artists and their work with the same enthusiasm as they discuss their most disliked. But they do not discuss themselves, or the work, or anything related to all the other long hours of the day. For life is ennui. Sole salvation lies in that small hour of passion.
Paddy Dobson
3rd December 2020